Lofty living

Scarred flooring alludes to the past in the former industrial space repurposed into living space by designer Gwynn Griffith.

Photo By Courtesy Kuper Sotheby's Interna

Designer Gwynn Griffith's home in a former industrial building is on the market for $1.1 million, listed by Judy Crawford of Kuper Sotheby's International Realty. It has three floors of living space plus a basement, with 4,000 square feet on each floor. It sits on .88 acres and is zoned for both commercial and residential use.

Photo By Courtesy Kuper Sotheby's Interna

Designer Gwynn Griffith's home in a former industrial building is on the market for $1.1 million, listed by Judy Crawford of Kuper Sotheby's International Realty. It has three floors of living space plus a basement, with 4,000 square feet on each floor. It sits on .88 acres and is zoned for both commercial and residential use.

Photo By Courtesy Kuper Sotheby's Interna

The fountain in designer Gwynn Griffith's courtyard was lplaced with a crane. She converted the former industrial building to three floors of living space.

Photo By Courtesy Kuper Sotheby's Interna

Designer Gwynn Griffith transfomred the former Lone Star Seed and Voss Iron Works building into her home.It is now listed for $1.1 million.

Photo By Courtesy Kuper Sotheby's Interna

The 1883 building repurposed by designer Gwynn Griffity into her home is zoned for commercial and residential uses.

Photo By Courtesy Kuper Sotheby's Interna

Sculptures and other ornaments decorate the grounds of the commercial building that designer Gwynn Griffith transformed into 12,000 feet of living space. It sits on .88 acres.

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mySA.com: See more photos and the story behind the Gwynn Griffith's warehouse conversion online.

When Gwynn Griffith stumbled across an enormous old industrial building about 17 years ago, it was an empty shell with a lovely brick exterior south of downtown.

Nothing inside indicated it would be a suitable place to live. But Griffith fell in love with the 1883 building, bought it and started adding windows, fireplaces, bathrooms and interior walls.

“I just made it up as I went along,” Griffith said of the property, which was once Lone Star Seed and Voss Iron Works. “I didn't really have any plans.”

Griffith, a designer who has decorated homes for celebrities such as Kevin Spacey, took loft living to the nth degree in the commercial building, ending up with a home that has been featured in magazines such as Veranda and Elle Décor. But there are other lofts tucked in an around downtown San Antonio — a city with a reputation for suburban life but plenty of urban vintage buildings.

“The whole idea started in lower Manhattan in the '60s and '70s. It was about taking a whole floor or more of a building and turning it into living space,” said architect Jim Poteet, who has designed a number of conversion projects, including King William Lofts and CampStreet Residences, both former industrial buildings.

Poteet said the idea of turning an existing building into something new adds to a neighborhood's streetscape and helps save quality building materials. The ornate brickwork, old-growth wood, steel beams and concrete found in older commercial buildings would be unaffordable at today's prices.

“It's sort of the opposite of capital A architecture and big gestures. It's very modest. You're trying to collaborate with an existing building and make a third thing, and let it maintain its integrity,” Poteet said. “I think there are a lot of people who really are in love with the idea of downtown redevelopment and lofts as a part of that. There's something really romantic about it.”

And older buildings adapted for a new purpose often have features that can't be found in newer architecture.

Griffith's home has a freight elevator, 12-foot windows and wood floors with burn marks — a reminder of the building's industrial past. “The floors are burned from the old day when it was Voss Metal Works,” Griffith said. “They would forge inside.”

Griffith just listed her home for $1.1 million. It has three floors with 12,000 total square feet of living space, each divided into its own apartment right now. There's also a 4,000-square-foot basement.

The property has a mix of old and new design. An entrance courtyard holds a fountain with a monumental Olmec head that had to be lifted into place with a crane.

Griffith added salvaged doors and windows, but was careful to respect the building's architecture. After moving in, she discovered that the building was designed to catch prevailing breezes — a quality she didn't want to lose. “I had to place walls carefully so it wouldn't interrupt the breeze,” she said.

Griffith said she plans to downsize but hopes her building, which is zoned for both residential and commercial uses, will become a home, a live-work space or even a restaurant.

Real estate agent Debra Maltz said that kind of flexibility can appeal to some buyers. She often gets phone calls that start like this: “I want to buy a little warehouse I can turn into my house.”

Maltz, who specializes in the downtown market, is honest, telling the potential clients, “It costs a lot of money to do that.”

For many years downtown living was geared

toward high-end condo buyers.

But now, whether someone is in the market for a large showplace or a smaller place to rent or purchase, Maltz said, the city has more loft options in buildings that were once car dealerships, warehouses or offices.

Rental options in converted buildings have widened in the past few years and include The Cadillac Lofts, with units from 505 to 1,650 square feet and the Steel House Lofts, which once housed the Peden Iron and Steel Co. Dielmann Lofts, near UTSA's downtown campus, was built between 1883 and 1885. The Exchange Building and the Maverick Building downtown, both rentals, used to be office buildings.

While Maltz sees plenty of great commercial properties with potential for conversion to residential use, she said parking downtown can be a problem. “Not all of those buildings have to have parking connected. That's the biggest challenge for some of these projects,” she said.

Real estate agent Ann Van Pelt said that while many recent loft projects have been geared toward renters, the for-sale market has been picking up steam, with lenders willing once again to make loans for condominium buyers, and more developers starting for-sale projects.

“I think the exciting news is that the downtown market is really changing. You can feel it by leaps and bounds now,” Van Pelt said.

Pricing can be tricky for both buyers and sellers of older properties that have been converted or are ripe for conversion. “It's not just bricks and mortar, but it's the old adage, location, location, location,” Van Pelt said. “It's not like suburbia where you have six of the same house by one builder. It requires a fresh look. You're not going to pull out a string of comps.”

Poteet said the extra effort can be worth it.

“The greenest building is the one that already exists. There's an environmental and cultural benefit to that persistence,” Poteet said. “San Antonio is a great town for it because of the way San Antonio has developed — or not developed. There are a lot of things that have been here since the '20s or the '40s or even the late 19th century.”